The present invention relates to a disc cassette loading apparatus of a recording and/or reproducing apparatus and more particularly to a mechanism for ejecting a cassette from a cassette holder adapted to rise and fall between an unloading position and a loading position.
It has been known to provide a recording and/or reproducing apparatus of the type in which a disc cassette comprising a cassette housing formed of a flat synthetic resin and a flexible magnetic disc (so-called magnetic sheet) is loaded on the recording and/or reproducing apparatus. The magnetic disc is rotated at a high speed within the cassette housing and at the same time a magnetic head is brought into contact with a magnetic surface of the magnetic disc while being moved in the radial direction of the magnetic disc to record or reproduce video, audio, or digital signals. In such a conventional recording and/or reproducing apparatus, usually the disc cassette is held by a cassette holder and is moved together with the holder from an unloading position to a loading position. When the disc cassette has been disposed in the loading position, the magnetic head comes into contact with the magnetic surface of the magnetic disc to perform recording or reproducing. The cassette is ejected by depressing an eject button, that is, depression of the eject button causes the cassette holder to rise from the loading position to the unloading position, whereupon the cassette is ejected from the cassette holder.
In the conventional disc cassette loading apparatus, however, the cassette ejecting operation is often started before the cassette holder completely reaches the unloading position. Consequently, serious drawbacks are encountered therein. For example, the cassette held within the cassette holder strikes against the inside surface of a front panel and is held therebetween. Or when the eject button depressing operation is stopped before the button is completely depressed, the cassette holder is urged in the descending direction despite the cassette being partially ejected to the outside from the front panel, thus making it impossible to pull out the cassette from the cassette holder. Also, in the latter case, if the cassette projecting from the front panel is pulled out forcibly from the cassette holder while holding a part of it with one's fingers, it is very likely that the pad and the magnetic head will be rubbed and damaged by the cassette housing.